Update 47 and Frost Damage Builds

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

Hey everyone. This is primarily a post intented for ZOS.

I just wanted to create another post relating to feedback from last patch to reiterate the things that frost damage builds need.

Last patch when you buffed piercing cold to 15%, you stated that you intended it to be a temporary bonus until you can work out a long term solution like more frost damage skills.

More frost damage skills would be great. But we don't just need quantity. We need quality. More than anything else, we need a delayed burst frost damage skill that works using what unique qualities our playstyle provides. The most unique thing our frost damage builds do is apply many ticks of chilled within a short span of time. Having a new winter's embrace morph that works using that as it's basis would be incredible for making our build more competitive.

Outside of this, We also lack a melee damage frost damage spammable that would work better for non ice staff settups and an execute.

Regarding what we need outside of damage skills, we need a way to gain some form of damage bonus out of the ice staff itself to either act as a replacement for ancient knowledge or a direct line on ancient knowledge that addresses this. The other way i could see this being solved is through a mythic item such as a jewelery piece. We also lack options for pure damage dealing frost damage monster helmets.

That's all i have to say for now but I'll keep this going every patch so that it isn't forgotten.

Frost damage builds are not the only unique builds that need help. Shock damage builds share many of the same problems including but not limited to lacking a delayed burst damage skill that works around their storm calling line, lack of interaction with the concussed status effect, and lack of power on mages fury, boundless storm, lightning splash and critical surge.

Radiate77 · July 10

Now imagine if Crystal Frag’s current appearance became a Skill Style and the skill was made icy blue and Frost Damage.

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

Radiate77 wrote: »

Now imagine if Crystal Frag’s current appearance became a Skill Style and the skill was made icy blue and Frost Damage.

I'd love that too but dark magic suffers greatly from having bad passives skills.

Radiate77 · July 10

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Now imagine if Crystal Frag’s current appearance became a Skill Style and the skill was made icy blue and Frost Damage.

I'd love that too but dark magic suffers greatly from having bad passives skills.

They’re all pretty good for sustain, and last time I played my FrostDen, sustain felt pretty rough. Though that was a few years ago when you could root people in Wall of Frost. Good times.

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

Radiate77 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Now imagine if Crystal Frag’s current appearance became a Skill Style and the skill was made icy blue and Frost Damage.

I'd love that too but dark magic suffers greatly from having bad passives skills.

They’re all pretty good for sustain, and last time I played my FrostDen, sustain felt pretty rough. Though that was a few years ago when you could root people in Wall of Frost. Good times.

I would say the block one doesn't add very much and exploitation is pretty much redundant outside of solo. The other 2 are definitely not bad though.

Morvan · July 10

The whole Winter's Embrace line need so much more love, they could start by changing Frozen Gate, the skill itself isn't great, and the Frozen Device morph proc Major Maim, which is redundant since we get that passively now with Icy Aura, so they could totally turn that into a delayed burst.

LunaFlora · July 10

agreed, we really need ice staff damage buffs especially.

MashmalloMan · July 10

Tentacular Dread is already so close to being a semi spammable burst frost skill, it just needs some tweaking.

Tentacular Dread:
- At 4004 Frost damage, it's quite similar to other skills in it's category: Sub Assault (2509+2509), Deep Fissure (2509+3486), Daedric Prey (2904), Haunting Curse (2999/2999), Blighted Blastbones (3600), Mercilous Resolve (4752), Relentless Focus (4183), Backlash (1161+3852), Flame Lash(3717), and Crystal Frag (4128).
- With the above in mind, it's hard to justify too much of a buff on the damage side, but I think I found a solution.
- Remove the +2% Abyssal Ink damage per crux spent, leaving the base 5%.
- Add -15% cost reduction per crux spent totaling -45% cost, resulting in 1931 Magicka instead of 3510.
- Slight increase to the damage dealt per crux from 33% to 40%, resulting in 4404 Frost damage instead of 4004.
Change Imperfect Ring morphs base damage from Magic to Frost matching the synergy it provides.
Buff the Arcanist class mastery to provide 2% damage done and healing done per active crux in addition to generating a crux. This allows a skill like Wield Soul to be an alternative spammable to Rune Blades without completely gutting your DPS, you could use Chilling Soul and do reasonably well as a Frost build or allow other classes to interact with the line better instead of crutching on Beam all the time.
Could change the element of more Arcanist skills, but if they won't do it for Sorc or Warden with very obvious element affinities they're not gonna do it for Arcanist with none. Imperfect Ring is an easy slam dunk though.

The point I made about better damage, less debuff, and less cost for Dread is to make it worth casting every 3 seconds for those that want to engage in that type of mini game. Right now it deals decent damage, but it costs way too much and the huge damage done debuff just makes other burst skills in this list overshadow it.

Obviously there's a slight problem of requiring Arcanist as a main class to use Chilling Soul + Tentacular Dread, but I'm not sure of a solution for that aside from "it is what it is" for now. Maybe we'll get more classes in the future to round out shock and frost, but in the mean time you could just use Rune Blades and forgo the 15% Frost damage on 1 skill.

Also.. nerf beam's cleave so other damage setups can actually thrive. Eg. -15% damage per enemy hit beyond the first.

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Tentacular Dread is already so close to being a semi spammable burst frost skill, it just needs some tweaking.
Tentacular Dread:
At 4004 Frost damage, it's quite similar to other skills in it's category: Sub Assault (2509+2509), Deep Fissure (2509+3486), Daedric Prey (2904), Haunting Curse (2999/2999), Blighted Blastbones (3600), Mercilous Resolve (4752), Relentless Focus (4183), Backlash (1161+3852), Flame Lash(3717), and Crystal Frag (4128).

With the above in mind, it's hard to justify too much of a buff on the damage side, but I think I found a solution.

Remove the +2% Abyssal Ink damage per crux spent, leaving the base 5%.

Add -15% cost reduction per crux spent totaling -45% cost, resulting in 1931 Magicka instead of 3510.

Slight increase to the damage dealt per crux from 33% to 40%, resulting in 4404 Frost damage instead of 4004.

Change Imperfect Ring morphs base damage from Magic to Frost matching the synergy it provides.

Buff the Arcanist class mastery to provide 2% damage done and healing done per active crux in addition to generating a crux. This allows a skill like Wield Soul to be an alternative spammable to Rune Blades without completely gutting your DPS, you could use Chilling Soul and do reasonably well as a Frost build or allow other classes to interact with the line better instead of crutching on Beam all the time.

Could change the element of more Arcanist skills, but if they won't do it for Sorc or Warden with very obvious element affinities they're not gonna do it for Arcanist with none. Imperfect Ring is an easy slam dunk though.

The point I made about better damage, less debuff, and less cost for Dread is to make it worth casting every 3 seconds for those that want to engage in that type of mini game. Right now it deals decent damage, but it costs way too much and the huge damage done debuff just makes other burst skills in this list overshadow it.

Obviously there's a slight problem of requiring Arcanist as a main class to use Chilling Soul + Tentacular Dread, but I'm not sure of a solution for that aside from "it is what it is" for now. Maybe we'll get more classes in the future to round out shock and frost, but in the mean time you could just use Rune Blades and forgo the 15% Frost damage on 1 skill.

Also.. nerf beam's cleave so other damage setups can actually thrive. Eg. -15% damage per enemy hit beyond the first.

personally i'm not a fan of tying our identity so heavily to arcanist and it's crux system. it forces using runeblades or a scribing skill just to make it function when it really should be focused around chilled. i do like tentacular dread though. the issue that arcanist skills have is they're incredibly immersion breaking for frost damage builds. the green runes might do frost damage but they don't at all look like frost.

MincMincMinc · July 10

There are alot of people that simply dont care for the "stack" mechanics too. The only time they are worth bothering is when they are guaranteed without thinking like merciless or the beam build.

Somewhere along the lines NB merciless convinced someone at zos that people love that gameplay. Without them realizing that players love doing more than most ultimates on a free skill. Sorc got the uninspired Bound armaments copy which is not worth ever running. Many stat proc sets got the same treatment. Many proc effect sets followed suit. The corpse system ran on the same principles but was never in a state where it could work as intended. The crux system is just the latest iteration.

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

MincMincMinc wrote: »

There are alot of people that simply dont care for the "stack" mechanics too. The only time they are worth bothering is when they are guaranteed without thinking like merciless or the beam build.

Somewhere along the lines NB merciless convinced someone at zos that people love that gameplay. Without them realizing that players love doing more than most ultimates on a free skill. Sorc got the uninspired Bound armaments copy which is not worth ever running. Many stat proc sets got the same treatment. Many proc effect sets followed suit. The corpse system ran on the same principles but was never in a state where it could work as intended. The crux system is just the latest iteration.

combo and stack type systems aren't native to ESO. they're in WoW and i'd assume other mmos as well. fulfilling a condition through your rotation to unlock some delayed high burst damage is very fun and kind of a bread and butter thing for class design.

MincMincMinc · July 10

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

There are alot of people that simply dont care for the "stack" mechanics too. The only time they are worth bothering is when they are guaranteed without thinking like merciless or the beam build.

Somewhere along the lines NB merciless convinced someone at zos that people love that gameplay. Without them realizing that players love doing more than most ultimates on a free skill. Sorc got the uninspired Bound armaments copy which is not worth ever running. Many stat proc sets got the same treatment. Many proc effect sets followed suit. The corpse system ran on the same principles but was never in a state where it could work as intended. The crux system is just the latest iteration.

combo and stack type systems aren't native to ESO. they're in WoW and i'd assume other mmos as well. fulfilling a condition through your rotation to unlock some delayed high burst damage is very fun and kind of a bread and butter thing for class design.

I understand that, but in most cases the condition is light attacking......at that point its just an overloaded skill with a cooldown. The corpse and crux system are the only examples I can think of that were more unique. The corpse system was ignored entirely for harmony gimmicks and the crux system is used in a playstyle that requires next to no effort. Once the beam build gets gutted I have doubts whether anyone will bother to think about crux.

MindOfTheSwarm · July 10

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

madmufffin · July 10

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

ESO_Nightingale · July 10

madmufffin wrote: »

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

It's recived quite a bit of work done in the past. I don't think it's unlikely.

ESO_Nightingale · July 11

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

Not sure how i feel about totem also being a frost AoE DoT. If there's 1 thing we already have a few options for it's ground based frost AoE DoTs. And i suppose AoE spammables too.

ESO_Nightingale · July 11

MincMincMinc wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

There are alot of people that simply dont care for the "stack" mechanics too. The only time they are worth bothering is when they are guaranteed without thinking like merciless or the beam build.

Somewhere along the lines NB merciless convinced someone at zos that people love that gameplay. Without them realizing that players love doing more than most ultimates on a free skill. Sorc got the uninspired Bound armaments copy which is not worth ever running. Many stat proc sets got the same treatment. Many proc effect sets followed suit. The corpse system ran on the same principles but was never in a state where it could work as intended. The crux system is just the latest iteration.

combo and stack type systems aren't native to ESO. they're in WoW and i'd assume other mmos as well. fulfilling a condition through your rotation to unlock some delayed high burst damage is very fun and kind of a bread and butter thing for class design.

I understand that, but in most cases the condition is light attacking......at that point its just an overloaded skill with a cooldown. The corpse and crux system are the only examples I can think of that were more unique. The corpse system was ignored entirely for harmony gimmicks and the crux system is used in a playstyle that requires next to no effort. Once the beam build gets gutted I have doubts whether anyone will bother to think about crux.

I suppose it depends. People are doing really big damage with tentacular dread's 11% ink buff. If beam builds are dead, those might not be.

YandereGirlfriend · July 11

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

Not sure how i feel about totem also being a frost AoE DoT. If there's 1 thing we already have a few options for it's ground based frost AoE DoTs. And i suppose AoE spammables too.

I think that adding anything interesting to Totem in order to augment its functionality is a win.

As an AOE Fear it just loses to everything in the game. And it's one of those skills that suffer from the sort of, "What if two morphs... but do the exact same thing!" that many Warden and Necro skills from that era suffer from.

Keep one as a Fear but turning the other into a damage skill is, IMO, pretty great. And Frost is the only element that makes thematic sense. It's basically the same argument as for changing one of the morphs of Frozen Device.

ESO_Nightingale · July 11

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

Not sure how i feel about totem also being a frost AoE DoT. If there's 1 thing we already have a few options for it's ground based frost AoE DoTs. And i suppose AoE spammables too.

I think that adding anything interesting to Totem in order to augment its functionality is a win.

As an AOE Fear it just loses to everything in the game. And it's one of those skills that suffer from the sort of, "What if two morphs... but do the exact same thing!" that many Warden and Necro skills from that era suffer from.

Keep one as a Fear but turning the other into a damage skill is, IMO, pretty great. And Frost is the only element that makes thematic sense. It's basically the same argument as for changing one of the morphs of Frozen Device.

I thought the agony synergy from the agony totem did magic damage? I could be wrong but don't have the time to check

YandereGirlfriend · July 11

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

Not sure how i feel about totem also being a frost AoE DoT. If there's 1 thing we already have a few options for it's ground based frost AoE DoTs. And i suppose AoE spammables too.

I think that adding anything interesting to Totem in order to augment its functionality is a win.

As an AOE Fear it just loses to everything in the game. And it's one of those skills that suffer from the sort of, "What if two morphs... but do the exact same thing!" that many Warden and Necro skills from that era suffer from.

Keep one as a Fear but turning the other into a damage skill is, IMO, pretty great. And Frost is the only element that makes thematic sense. It's basically the same argument as for changing one of the morphs of Frozen Device.

I thought the agony synergy from the agony totem did magic damage? I could be wrong but don't have the time to check

That synergy is so dogwater that I don't even remember. But Magic, I think that we would agree, is generally an unsatisfying cop-out for classes other than NB and Templar. Frost makes the most intuitive sense for a class themed upon death and decay.

Tangent but I hate that synergy being a weak DOT. It should be Direct Damage so that it would at least have some hypothetical use case in PvP as well.

ESO_Nightingale · July 11

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

There is too much split between skill lines for Frost Damage. Also Arcanist is just too good to pass up for the most part. They should just put all the Necro Frost stuff into Bone Tyrant skill line. Make Scythe Frost, AoE on ULT Frost and make the remote totem baseline and give it a morph that pulses from Frost Damage every 2 seconds and applies Chilled every pulse. Extend the DoT duration to 10 seconds on Grasp DoT and instead of three separate areas, just pool it into one area that applies all the effects at once.

That would leave the Graveyard to be sacrificed if you don’t want to start as a Necro, but it could be balanced out with a Scribing Ground DoT to compensate. In fact, starting as a Necro or Arcanist is arguably better for Frost builds since the class scribing bonuses are directly beneficial to the skills we would take.

To be honest with subclassing Necro really needs a complete overhaul.

I would go:

Grave Lord Skills: Flame/Shock and Disease

Bone Tyrant Skills: Frost and Bleed

Keep heals as is.

Ditch Poison, Physical and Magic completely from the class.

Having every damage type baked into one class just dilutes the available options. The above suggestion still maintains the magical elemental flavor, but allows Disease to shine in the game while also getting rid of Magic Damage to double down on the magical elemental flavor of the class. At the same time Frost options are opened up for all classes.

Speaking of Warden there is a lot that just feels off.

Like why does Sleet Storm grant Major Protection? Doesn’t it make more sense for it to apply Major Maim to enemies in the area? Directly supporting the idea that enemies are in a storm and hindered?

Permafrost should last forever, be free to cast and remain active when bar swapping, but with the Snare, guaranteed Chill effect removed, and its area of effect reduced. I would also change Major Maim to Minor Maim to offset the permanence of it. It is a weak ability in PVE, but having it up all the time would provide an alternative to the bear. I would put the hard snare on Northern Storm. So you have to choose from:

1. Permanent, but weak AoE damage and Minor Maim.
2. Temporary, but powerful AoE damage, Snare and Major Maim.

This would mean that you be able to have Permafrost and Eye of The Storm active at the same time albeit with reduced burst damage in favor of consistent lower damage. Would be helpful for older players too for a more casual experience.

Also I would have Frost Armor apply a condition that considers you as Bracing (not blocking), this would synergise with Frozen Watcher allowing you to have the effect up without actually blocking provided you have your Frost Armor up.

Personally, I think this would be a very fun way to play. Combining Permafrost, Hurricane, Arctic Blast, Frozen Watcher and Impulse for a Snow Storm style of build.

Not sure how i feel about totem also being a frost AoE DoT. If there's 1 thing we already have a few options for it's ground based frost AoE DoTs. And i suppose AoE spammables too.

I think that adding anything interesting to Totem in order to augment its functionality is a win.

As an AOE Fear it just loses to everything in the game. And it's one of those skills that suffer from the sort of, "What if two morphs... but do the exact same thing!" that many Warden and Necro skills from that era suffer from.

Keep one as a Fear but turning the other into a damage skill is, IMO, pretty great. And Frost is the only element that makes thematic sense. It's basically the same argument as for changing one of the morphs of Frozen Device.

I thought the agony synergy from the agony totem did magic damage? I could be wrong but don't have the time to check

That synergy is so dogwater that I don't even remember. But Magic, I think that we would agree, is generally an unsatisfying cop-out for classes other than NB and Templar. Frost makes the most intuitive sense for a class themed upon death and decay.

Tangent but I hate that synergy being a weak DOT. It should be Direct Damage so that it would at least have some hypothetical use case in PvP as well.

Yeah it's not great for sure.

randconfig · July 11

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Tentacular Dread is already so close to being a semi spammable burst frost skill, it just needs some tweaking.
Tentacular Dread:
At 4004 Frost damage, it's quite similar to other skills in it's category: Sub Assault (2509+2509), Deep Fissure (2509+3486), Daedric Prey (2904), Haunting Curse (2999/2999), Blighted Blastbones (3600), Mercilous Resolve (4752), Relentless Focus (4183), Backlash (1161+3852), Flame Lash(3717), and Crystal Frag (4128).

With the above in mind, it's hard to justify too much of a buff on the damage side, but I think I found a solution.

Remove the +2% Abyssal Ink damage per crux spent, leaving the base 5%.

Add -15% cost reduction per crux spent totaling -45% cost, resulting in 1931 Magicka instead of 3510.

Slight increase to the damage dealt per crux from 33% to 40%, resulting in 4404 Frost damage instead of 4004.

Change Imperfect Ring morphs base damage from Magic to Frost matching the synergy it provides.

Buff the Arcanist class mastery to provide 2% damage done and healing done per active crux in addition to generating a crux. This allows a skill like Wield Soul to be an alternative spammable to Rune Blades without completely gutting your DPS, you could use Chilling Soul and do reasonably well as a Frost build or allow other classes to interact with the line better instead of crutching on Beam all the time.

Could change the element of more Arcanist skills, but if they won't do it for Sorc or Warden with very obvious element affinities they're not gonna do it for Arcanist with none. Imperfect Ring is an easy slam dunk though.

The point I made about better damage, less debuff, and less cost for Dread is to make it worth casting every 3 seconds for those that want to engage in that type of mini game. Right now it deals decent damage, but it costs way too much and the huge damage done debuff just makes other burst skills in this list overshadow it.

Obviously there's a slight problem of requiring Arcanist as a main class to use Chilling Soul + Tentacular Dread, but I'm not sure of a solution for that aside from "it is what it is" for now. Maybe we'll get more classes in the future to round out shock and frost, but in the mean time you could just use Rune Blades and forgo the 15% Frost damage on 1 skill.

Also.. nerf beam's cleave so other damage setups can actually thrive. Eg. -15% damage per enemy hit beyond the first.

Can't really use Tentacular Dread because the class mastery script nerf and the ongoing bugged interaction with it and Inspired Scholarship/other-morphs, unless you're okay with being stuck using runeblades as a spammable since you can't even scribe a frost spammable that generates crux now.

Why can't Arcanist do anything other than spam the beam ZOS, stop removing player choice with the crux system. The problem is the beam, why can't you just nerf the beam, like how hard is to make the beam not allow crux generation during it's channel, why do you have to wreck the entire class's ability to engage with scribing, engage with subclassing, or use literally anything other than runeblades. It's like you want to make people mad and kill off the game. First breaking the Necromancer class entirely in U46 and now removing the viability of any Arcanist playstyle other than just spamming the beam in U47. I'm actually so frustrated and sad for the game now, if this comes to live, I think I'm done.

madmufffin · July 12

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

It's recived quite a bit of work done in the past. I don't think it's unlikely.

Previously it was part of the class' overall dps kit. Now with subclassing, it can be straight up written off as being the tank line since subclassing has made those lines a lot more clearly defined and relevant now.

ESO_Nightingale · July 12

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

It's recived quite a bit of work done in the past. I don't think it's unlikely.

Previously it was part of the class' overall dps kit. Now with subclassing, it can be straight up written off as being the tank line since subclassing has made those lines a lot more clearly defined and relevant now.

frankly im not sure if they would do that purely because they know how popular frost dps builds now are. you see proof of this due to a lot of content creators making those builds and people in the comments of those videos eating it up like a good meal.

honestly, i don't think it can be written off at the moment because it's not so bad that the line is too far behind other lines. it is definitely behind, but its not as bad as lines like dark magic. you can use it on dps builds if you want the theme without sacrificing a ton of dps. its when you try to further delve deeper by using an ice staff and frost themed sets beyond whorl of the depths where it starts to get bad. but utilising winter's revenge and arctic blast with a frost glyph does very servicible damage. i don't think they'll get rid of that. especially when they said last patch that they're going to keep an eye on piercing cold until they have a long term solution, like more frost damage skills.

madmufffin · July 12

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

It's recived quite a bit of work done in the past. I don't think it's unlikely.

Previously it was part of the class' overall dps kit. Now with subclassing, it can be straight up written off as being the tank line since subclassing has made those lines a lot more clearly defined and relevant now.

frankly im not sure if they would do that purely because they know how popular frost dps builds now are. you see proof of this due to a lot of content creators making those builds and people in the comments of those videos eating it up like a good meal.

honestly, i don't think it can be written off at the moment because it's not so bad that the line is too far behind other lines. it is definitely behind, but its not as bad as lines like dark magic. you can use it on dps builds if you want the theme without sacrificing a ton of dps. its when you try to further delve deeper by using an ice staff and frost themed sets beyond whorl of the depths where it starts to get bad. but utilising winter's revenge and arctic blast with a frost glyph does very servicible damage. i don't think they'll get rid of that. especially when they said last patch that they're going to keep an eye on piercing cold until they have a long term solution, like more frost damage skills.

Content creator make videos about it as a cool theory, but the data simply isn't there to show that it's being used in the game's content. If it weren't for it's functionality on tanks/healers, it would have a pick rate similar to that of Dark Magic overall. If Icy Aura or Frozen Armor had a tank and dps component to the passive and Frostbite was a medium armor set that actually worked (please god fix this set already) then maybe it could get somewhere, but I just don't see it being viable enough for them to fix it with intent especially when the only people asking for it are a small minority who enjoy the thematic component.

ESO_Nightingale · July 12

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

With Winter's being the 'tank' line for Warden, I don't foresee them putting much effort into making frost builds work. They just have no real incentive to do so since they can just write it off as not being a dps line. Would be fun for tank parsing in trials though.

It's recived quite a bit of work done in the past. I don't think it's unlikely.

Previously it was part of the class' overall dps kit. Now with subclassing, it can be straight up written off as being the tank line since subclassing has made those lines a lot more clearly defined and relevant now.

frankly im not sure if they would do that purely because they know how popular frost dps builds now are. you see proof of this due to a lot of content creators making those builds and people in the comments of those videos eating it up like a good meal.

honestly, i don't think it can be written off at the moment because it's not so bad that the line is too far behind other lines. it is definitely behind, but its not as bad as lines like dark magic. you can use it on dps builds if you want the theme without sacrificing a ton of dps. its when you try to further delve deeper by using an ice staff and frost themed sets beyond whorl of the depths where it starts to get bad. but utilising winter's revenge and arctic blast with a frost glyph does very servicible damage. i don't think they'll get rid of that. especially when they said last patch that they're going to keep an eye on piercing cold until they have a long term solution, like more frost damage skills.

Content creator make videos about it as a cool theory, but the data simply isn't there to show that it's being used in the game's content. If it weren't for it's functionality on tanks/healers, it would have a pick rate similar to that of Dark Magic overall. If Icy Aura or Frozen Armor had a tank and dps component to the passive and Frostbite was a medium armor set that actually worked (please god fix this set already) then maybe it could get somewhere, but I just don't see it being viable enough for them to fix it with intent especially when the only people asking for it are a small minority who enjoy the thematic component.

i suppose we'll just have to wait and see what they do.

alpha_synuclein · July 12

It would be nice to see warden class mastery reworked into something frost related.

BasP · July 12

It would indeed be great if we'd get a Frost Damage execute skill and delayed burst ability. I once hoped that maybe an Execute Script would be added to Scribing, which could've been used to create a Frost execute, but I don't really see that happening anymore.

Same as MindOfTheSwarm, I'd also like to see Bone Tyrant receive more sources of Frost Damage. It already has Ghostly Embrace and, to be honest, I just like the theme of the skill line for a Frost Damage build (I prefer its Death Knight-y vibes over Herald's tentacles, for example). Remote Totem could definitely be reworked into a Frost Damage skill and Beckoning Armor for example could get a Frost DoT in place of Major Resolve. I suppose the skill line would then also have to get a good passive for DPS though.

ESO_Nightingale · July 13

BasP wrote: »

It would indeed be great if we'd get a Frost Damage execute skill and delayed burst ability. I once hoped that maybe an Execute Script would be added to Scribing, which could've been used to create a Frost execute, but I don't really see that happening anymore.

Same as MindOfTheSwarm, I'd also like to see Bone Tyrant receive more sources of Frost Damage. It already has Ghostly Embrace and, to be honest, I just like the theme of the skill line for a Frost Damage build (I prefer its Death Knight-y vibes over Herald's tentacles, for example). Remote Totem could definitely be reworked into a Frost Damage skill and Beckoning Armor for example could get a Frost DoT in place of Major Resolve. I suppose the skill line would then also have to get a good passive for DPS though.

although i dont think we quite need more AoE DoT frost damage skills, i wouldn't exactly complain if hungry scythe did frost damage instead of magic. i do really like the line and having access to necrotic potency is fun as.

BasP · July 13

True, it'd be better to have different Frost abilities instead of two more AoE DoTs.

A Frost Scythe could be fun, yeah. Sadly, Hungry Scythe is more of a tanking skill and its damage is abysmal at the moment (I believe Biting Jabs/ Puncturing Sweep deal 58% more DPS and cost around 22% less to boot). I do hope ZOS makes both morphs of Death Scythe better spammables some day.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

i do like tentacular dread though. the issue that arcanist skills have is they're incredibly immersion breaking for frost damage builds. the green runes might do frost damage but they don't at all look like frost.

This got me thinking - I don't see it happening, but it'd be cool if there was a skill style to make the green runes look like icicles. If that were the case, I'd probably like using the skill line for a frost build.

ESO_Nightingale · July 13

BasP wrote: »

True, it'd be better to have different Frost abilities instead of two more AoE DoTs.

A Frost Scythe could be fun, yeah. Sadly, Hungry Scythe is more of a tanking skill and its damage is abysmal at the moment (I believe Biting Jabs/ Puncturing Sweep deal 58% more DPS and cost around 22% less to boot). I do hope ZOS makes both morphs of Death Scythe better spammables some day.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

i do like tentacular dread though. the issue that arcanist skills have is they're incredibly immersion breaking for frost damage builds. the green runes might do frost damage but they don't at all look like frost.

This got me thinking - I don't see it happening, but it'd be cool if there was a skill style to make the green runes look like icicles. If that were the case, I'd probably like using the skill line for a frost build.

imagine a massive ice spike skin for tentacular dread